Don't let those pinko honkeys jive any of you. They'll throw various rationalizations at you:

The orbiter design is outdated

We want to privatize up to low Earth orbit

etc.

It's all a bunch of self-deceit they want you to passively validate.

Since they are looking for an orbiter replacement, not an actual upgrade, the design is not exactly outdated. Whether privatizing is desired is a separate issue from whether the public sector should continue its own efforts. The two are not mutually exclusive.

The reality is that the secular theologists of the liberal democratic left would like you to pay a larger share into blind egalitarian humanism and less into endeavors that make human life overall in our world something a little more significant than that of termites who just consume, excrete cellulose, and lay offspring for more of the same.